Welcome to the Blossom and Root channel--a peek into our secular, nature-based homeschool. Charlotte Mason and Waldorf inspired, Brave Writer Lifestyle, and lots of hands-on learning in the great outdoors. Blog, resources, curriculum, and more at www.blossomandroot.com! Thanks for tuning in!
I'm glad I found a good secular curriculum for my daughter. There wasn't much in the way for secular homeschooling when my mom homeschooled me so I'm so excited!
Layers of learning has been amazing for us for history and geography! I also like story of the world in combo with it and I make my own portions of the curricullum for parts of history that are largely or totally excluded, so the Bronze Age-medieval age for Nordic history, indigenous history for the IS and Canada, and we are hoping to add what we can. There is nearly no Slavic history prior to the point where it impacts America in curricullum so I hope to add that as well
I'm thinking I'm going to vol 1 for my 2.5 and 5 in August year olds. They're on about the same level with letters. My 2.5 year old seems to be a tad ahead of the almost 5 year old
Thank you so much. I speak French and I am starting homeschool this year and was eager to teach my children French but was wondering about resources. I will check out all those link😊
This was SO helpful! I have a 3 and almost 5 year old and it's not surprising since kids vary so much. But they're about at the same level. 😂 Kids are funny creatures. I am SO looking forward to this journey ♥️
I wish I'd watch this before buying. When my infant gets older she can use volume one, but I think I'm going to combine my two children and just use the older ones curriculum. Thanks for this video!
I have a 2.5 year old and 4.5 year old. The 2.5 year olds is nowhere near ready to learn letter sounds but the 4.5 year old is just getting interested now. So I’m thinking of just starting with 1 and then adding some vol 2 stuff too. Idk, I bought both so we’ll see how it goes
Thank you for this. I am trying to figure out how to introduce Spanish to my son and your list of ideas is super helpful because I have been trying to figure out how to structure something without a curriculum (as Talkbox.Mom hasn't worked for us yet and I haven't found anything else that feels like what I want).
I grew up in Japan yet my children are reaistent to Japanese. But they love French and so we have decided to learn as a family. It is SO difficult for me because Japanese comes naturally for me but French sounds awful coming from me!!!! RU-vid has been a savior!
I was helped! I also grew up studying French and was an exchange student at the age of 11. I never considered the TpT site but am heading there now. Thank you for sharing!
Well, I found the information on the emergent readers to be very helpful. If I had just seen these on TPT I probably would have scrolled past them, but this video gave me some ideas for how to use them.
My little one has just turned 5 and does not write or read yet. Is the 2nd volume still good for her or would you recommend a different one? She is currently in a private Montessori but we have lots of breaks for various holidays and I want to have some structured time with her. Thanks!
I just discovered your videos, and they are wonderful! Please do a video on how you've covered each continent along the way. I'd love to know what you did and what you plan to do for each. So helpful! Thank you!!!
I just began using your second grade curriculum and will be starting the kindergarten with my youngest soon. It is so great and I can't wait to keep learning from you on here too! 💕
This is a wonderful approach. Thanks for sharing! I’ve been overwhelmed trying to think how to do geography, as a new homeschooler (& full time single mama) our plate is already full. I think I am going to use Blossom and Root River of voices for history, so perhaps our first continent will be North America. If you do more Africa units, I had a friend in high school teach me a children’s song in Swahili. I always remembered it. Thanks to RU-vid I was able to find it! This might be a fun thing to add if singing is fun for your littles. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-kY0VucZrgWA.html
You are amazing! I am a Christian who is unable to find such an culturally aware curriculum within the Christian homeschooling community. That fact makes no sense to me! But your curriculum touches on so many different people groups in such a compassionate and respectful way. I am 1/4 Mexican. My family can be traced back to before New Mexico was US Territory. We also have Native American relatives. So it is important to me that we learn about those people groups as well as African Americans in US History. There is nothing out there like a River Of Voices right now. It’s really special! And I’m seeing the same about the way you do geography. Keep up the good work!
I like to add puzzle of the artwork we are studying. I find it's as great way to talk about the artist, the color, the interpretation that we do of his work, etc.
Thank you this was very helpful. Looking forward to your future videos, especially those related to teaching French. I ordered from a Canadian based book store called Indigo that has a great selection of French Children's books.
I really like how you write a sticky note for what you would like to do and then write what you did. I do a lot of reverse planning, writing what we did and evaluating what we need to do from there. Planning for the year or the month overwhelms me. The only thing I like to plan ahead is experiments, co-op or any activity we do that requires that. Thanks for the ideas! Beautiful planner!🌷
Would you also recommend this for elementary? My girls are 14 months apart, so just one grade level separated. They're rising to third and fourth this year.
In LA, could you find a good cursive alphabet to use? We want to teach cursive first. You could give parents a choice, manuscript or cursive. Even from Kindergarten.
We shared all of our books for our Asia study on our Instagram TV channel recently. :) We've only covered Africa and Asia so far, since we take our time covering each continent. I'll make a note to build lists for those on our website soon!
Perfectly answered my question! I have a 4.5 year old son and 2.5 year old girl. I will Be using Early Years Volume 2 for him, and will probably use your Volume 1 book list to add to our basket, but otherwise pare down for her lesson as you suggested. Thank you!
I’ve really enjoyed your videos, more so than any others going over the B&R curriculum. I would love to have more of you talking about your different levels lol. Only because most of the other reviews just show “book hauls” and rarely give more in depth info.
Love these ideas! Only thing I would add is that it's super important to have your kids listen to native French speakers so they can pick up the accent. Try to find French music/songs that are sung by French people. The WhistleFritz CDs while catchy have very English-sounding accents when they sing in French. There are lots on RU-vid if you search for "Francais chansons les enfants".
Great ideas! I’m in a similar boat as I also have a lot of French language background, but I felt overwhelmed trying to decide how to incorporate it into homeschool without any official “curriculum”. I’ve just recently decided to take the plunge and figure it out as we go. So far songs have been a hit, using puppets to talk, and also reading baby books in French.
Thank you! I've found a few more resources since this video was made, so I need to make an updated one. Still pulling things together as I find them, but that seems to work well for us. :) I love the puppet idea!
